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Projects: LIFE Experiment: Phobos

Ten Hardy Organisms Selected for the LIFE Experiment

Who will Survive the 3-Year Space Odyssey?

Can living beings survive a journey of years through interplanetary space? The Planetary Society is testing whether 10 distinct organisms could survive such a long journey in interplanetary space with the LIFE (Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment) module, set to launch on board Russia's Phobos-Grunt ("soil") mission.

Since only ten organisms could be selected for the trip, the stakes in choosing the right ones were high. After all, these particular creatures would be stand-ins for all the innumerable organisms that may have been launched on such a trip over the ages. Three fundamental guidelines governed the selection of the organisms. First, the organisms selected would represent the three domains of life – eukaryotea, bacteria, and archaea. Second, the organisms should be very well studied (e.g., having their genome sequenced and studied in many other experiments) to make it possible to accurately assess the effects of the long exposure to space. If they had already been studied in space conditions so much the better, since it would enable researchers to pinpoint precisely how organisms were affected by the years-long exposure to the interplanetary environment.

Finally, a strong preference was given to organisms that appear to stand the best chance of surviving the journey. These are extremophiles, organisms that thrive in conditions that would snuff the life out of the vast majority of Earthly creatures.

Here we present the final list of organisms that will fly.